Peking Restaurant 金華海鮮美食之家

Continuing with catching up on my posts, brings me to Peking Restaurant. My first visit here was probably five or six years ago and I thought the food was average, nothing special and no complaints. However, a couple of years ago, I mentioned the restaurant to a friend and he remembered Peking Restaurant as disgusting because of the "man who serves soup with thumb in bowl." His situation was probably an isolated incident and I never thought the restaurant was dirty or had sloppy staff.

I believe Peking Restaurant has renovated sometime in the last few years because the interior looks fairly clean. Although I do not remember what the interior looked like before. Anyways, since we were already in the area, I decided to revisit. Plus, I needed congee because I was sick.

SOUP OF THE DAY (COMPLIMENTARY WITH COMBO).

The broth tastes very light, kind of bland, and does not have much taste. The soup could have been cooked longer but hey, it does not taste salty?

DEEP FRIED TOFU WITH SALT AND HOT PEPPER (COMPLIMENTARY WITH COMBO).

The tofu is perfectly deep fried with a nice crisp exterior, and tastes juicy. Furthermore, the seasoning is pretty good and has a peppery salty flavour with a hint of spiciness.

STEAMED RICE (COMPLIMENTARY WITH COMBO).
I packed the rice home to make congee LOL, because we never purchase jasmine rice.

MIXED MEAT AND SEAFOOD WITH TOFU HOT POT.

Since we were having a light lunch, we purchased a two item combo for $25.50.

The hot pot has a good amount of ingredients; bean curd, Chinese mushroom, barbecue pork, chicken, squid and prawns. To start, the chicken tastes tender with the help of a meat tenderizer, and the prawns taste bouncy. Following, the squid tastes tender, not too chewy, and the barbecue pork tastes housemade. The barbecue pork is sliced perfectly thin and tastes tender, despite a lean portion of the meat. All the ingredients taste generic and the only complaint is the sauce.

The sauce has a light meaty saucy taste, but is not very good. Furthermore, the consistency is very watery and thin.

SWEET AND SOUR PORK.
The sweet and sour pork is fresh and made to order (in our case). In addition, the batter resembles chicken from Church's Chicken and tastes crunchy, overly. Usually when restaurants pre-make sweet n' sour pork and leave it in the fridge, the batter softens up which I prefer. As for the sauce, the taste is more sweet than sour, and we did not like it, it just does not taste like the usual sweet n' sour sauce. As for the pork, the cuts of meat are very small and the batter is extremely thick! There is not much taste of the meat. That, or the whole piece is pure fat. I hate to say this because Peking Restaurant is a family operated business, but this is probably the worst sweet and sour pork I have had in a very long time. 

SLICED FISH CONGEE ($6.95).

The congee has a somewhat thickened consistency along with chunks of loose rice, and was made from cooked rice. In addition, the congee does not have that natural flavourful white taste or creaminess, and I asked for no MSG or salt (I prefer plain congee). However, MSG as well as salt was still added (just a bit). As for the slices of fish, there are a few medium sized pieces which taste tender.

COMPLIMENTARY SLICES OF ORANGE.
The orange tastes very sweet and I needed the vitamin C.

POSITIVES

- Friendly waitress

NEGATIVES

- Food squeaks by just average

- There are better Chinese restaurants along Hastings Street

LITTLE THINGS

- Owner is friendlier than the wife

- Some items must be good because there were a few people talking about having a party here
- Having lunch for Chinese is boring because you cannot order as much

- For the same price, we should have tried the peking duck instead 

- We went for dinner at New Lakeview Restaurant later, which is a lot better

Food: 2.5/5

Service: 2.5/5